Over the 12 years he’s been artistic director of Dresden’s Semperoper Ballet, Aaron S. Watkin has not only developed a versatile company capable of both classic ballet and modern dance, but also cultivated an audience of dance lovers in the East German city.

It’s been a long journey for the British Columbia-born dancer and choreographer. When he arrived in Dresden in 2006, the European tradition of going to the ballet had fallen by the wayside in the decades following the Second World War.

Aaron S. Watkin

“Dresden was so bombed and cut off from culture during the war,” Watkin says, “and because it’s in a valley, they didn’t even get the same TV that other East Germans saw, so when I came to the opera house, there was not a ballet public.”

At the time, he was an energetic 36-year-old, and saw an opportunity to start from scratch.

“It’s served us positively in a lot of ways because I’ve been able to take all these people on a journey, and they’ve really come with us through the classics and the modern,” he says. “I touched on the main choreographers of this century to get them caught up, and then we’ve gone onward now with younger choreographers and new talent.”

He also discovered the Germans’ huge appetite for full-length, classical ballets, such as Swan Lake, which is on the program next week when Semperoper Ballet Dresden comes to the National Arts Centre for the first time with Watkins at the helm.

“I think we could do 100 performances a year at home and they’d all be sold out,” he says with a laugh.

Watkins, who’s now 47, describes his version of Swan Lake as “refreshed.” Not completely revamped, but freshened and condensed to two acts instead of four.

“I’ve always had a passion for the traditional classical pieces, and I like to reinvent them,” he says. “Not so much with the story, or the traditional sections of the main principals, but especially with the musicality, rhythm and choreography. I tried to condense it and not have it dragging on with tons of miming. I feel there’s a lot of dustiness to some of the older productions and I wanted to reinvent it a bit so that audiences could enjoy it and move through it with momentum.”

Part of his approach involved returning to the original tempo of Tchaikovsky’s score, which had been slowed down over the years. “In the past 30 or 40 years, technique has improved so that a dancer can lift their leg much higher or do many more pirouettes,” Watkin explains, “and people decided the dancers needed more time so they slowed down a lot of the music to the point where a musician would tell you it sounds ridiculous.

“We have one of the best orchestras in the world in Dresden, and they can be very disappointed to play for ballet when it’s not how it’s supposed to be, so I’ve tried to inspire them as well as the dancers with tempos that are more original. In general, it’s a bit faster.”

Swan Lake ensemble with the Dresden Semperoper Ballet. Ian Whalen

During his tenure in Dresden, Watkin has also presented refreshed versions of Sleeping Beauty, The Nutcracker and Don Quixote, to name a few of the classics in the company’s repertoire. In all, they have more than 75 pieces to draw from, both classical and modern.

“For me, my vision is breaking down the borders that exist in dance these days between the classical camp, the modern camp and the neoclassical camp,” Watkin says, “where each team only does that style and doesn’t like any other. After 12 years, I really have a group of dancers now that has experienced an enormous repertoire, from extremely modern to extremely classical.”

Born in British Columbia’s Cowichan Valley, Watkin graduated from the National Ballet School of Canada in 1988, when he was 18. Even then, he always wanted to go to Europe because of the proliferation of ballet companies, and level of support for cultural activities.

After dancing with companies in England, Holland, Frankfurt and Spain, Watkin freelanced for a few years setting up productions for other choreographers, including the influential American William Forsythe, who was artistic director of Frankfurt Ballet when Watkin was there.

“He’s definitely one of my main influences as far as the company culture that I want to instill,” Watkin says. “He treats people like adults, and also like individuals. He’ll take a dancer because of the special qualities they have, not just because he needs an extra dancer. It’s a very special creative atmosphere, which is what I like to have here.”

Watkin first went to Dresden to set up a production for Forsythe, and was offered the Semperoper Ballet directorship after the run. Forsythe was also instrumental in bringing Watkin’s company to Paris for the first time two years ago. The company has also performed in London and was in New York City this past week. An Asian tour is in the works for next year.

“When I started, we had no tours because no one knew who we were, and then something kind of special happened,” says Watkin. “Through William and his ballets, we started getting offers to tour because he would say, ‘If you want my work, you have to bring Dresden because that’s the company I want to show.’ The company started to get this buzz. Now we have theatres calling us and asking us to come on tours. It’s a very exciting time right now.”

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